A GERMAN man has been arrested for allegedly using false documents to secure a job as a senior airline pilot, a Sri Lankan police spokesman said. Ranjith Gunasekara said the man had been flying for Sri Lanka's national carrier for 10 months before an internal probe found he was only qualified as a co-pilot, and not as a captain of a wide-bodied airliner. "We are going to take over all the documents from personal files for our investigations," Mr Gunasekara said. "The German national is now being held by the airport police."
There was no immediate comment from Sri Lankan airline, which until April this year was fully-managed by Emirates of Dubai. Sri Lankan airline sources said the German national was discovered when a junior pilot, who had been sent for routine training on a bigger Airbus A-340, noticed that the "captain" was uncomfortable with the controls.
However, he had still captained Sri Lankan flights to European destinations including London, Frankfurt and Paris, as well as Dubai, the sources said.
Out of interest, (non pilot here) do pilots and FOs pass over copies of their credentials to new employers showing their national/international certification or is it usually based on trust (plus of course competency when you do check rides etc)?
In all cases I know of, you have to supply everything to your employer (licence, logbook, certificates, passport, work-permit, criminal record check etc). If you hold an ICAO licence but not from the state of your employer (e.g. an American working in an EU JAR state), you will also have to get your American licence "validated" for the EU state which also means handing over your entire paper trail to the authority in order that they can issue you with a certificate of validation.
If you are a JAR licence holder going to work in another JAR state there is no authority checking, but the employer is still obliged to check as they must ensure a pilot is fit for purpose.
Could that be the same German national who was fired from GF (where he flew as 330/340 f/o) a few months back when it was found out that he had flown with an Indian airline as a 320 Capt. while on leave?
The same thing happened back in the early 80's with an American passing himself off as a Captain when he was actually a SAUDIA FO on the Tri-Star. The jig was up when another SAUDIA crew member ran into him in Columbo. Sri Lanka seems to never have learned its lesson.
As I know the German JAR FCL shows definitely PIC or COP together with the rating. And usually foreign employers ask for a licence verification letter. Possible that he went through an upgrade training but failed during supervision? In this case he could get the entry but he never worked as PIC. Or am I wrong?
Could easily be that he just pencilled in enough hours to get issued with an ATPL, and had the chutzpah to apply for, and the luck to land a P1 job. Sure he'd be uncomfortable then, and soon get spotted.
The word "qualified" would seem to support this, because he clearly passed the company induction and sim checks, and then worksd for several months. If fsubsequently found to be only a CPL then "Not Qualified" would be the word usd to describe it, not so?
Without getting up from my chair to have a look, I have a feeling that all UK issued licences state PIC or PIC U/S for the type rating you have. Therefore the upgrade to Captain is purely a company thing. I don't think your licence changes. I don't think all companies ask for logbooks, and anyway, these could easily be faked. And I guess Sri Lankan didn't ask for a reference from the previous airline, or didn't ask the question?
Reminds me of a guy who joined the same airline as me in the early 80's. His hours were as F/E but he had transposed them to a new logbook as P2. He was found out at the simulator stage when every V1 cut produced a perfect half barrel roll followed by a pull through into the ground. Only the direction varied, depending on which engine had failed. A joy to behold.
Heard from several sources that many expat non rated DEC's pull the wool over Korean eyes too.
Also many South African cruise pilots logged their B744 cruise time as P1 time, colluded with a corrupt KE recruitment officer and got to be KE B744 skippers!
Easy to do fellas...the Koreans are real slack with background checks; when the realise they were fooled, they just keep quiet so as n NOT TO LOSR FACE.
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